WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES: Gravesend gran left with hole in face after medics failed to notice tumour size of turnip

A grandmother from Gravesend been left horribly disfigured after medics failed to notice a tumour the size of turnip growing on her nose.

Golda Humphrey, 79, of Windmill Street, was even nicknamed Pinocchio and has been left with a hole in the centre of her face after a series of life-saving operations to remove a huge cancerous growth from the end of her nose.

The family are suing Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust for negligence claiming it had ample opportunity to spot the tumour.

The deformity began when she was in hospital and over nearly five months a scab repeatedly formed on the tip of her nose before dropping off.

Doctors initially dismissed the growth as a freak reaction to the medication she was given after badly breaking her leg.

Each time it came back the sore got bigger and nurses nicknamed her after the fairytale character whose nose keeps growing.

Golda said: "The tumour was so big it had spread to my lip and I had to have two operations to remove it.

"By the end it was the size of a turnip.

"Now I've been left with a gaping hole in the middle of my face - I look like I've been shot."

Golda's ordeal began in July 2011 when she fell in her garden and broke her femur and shattered her kneecap.

She was hospitalised for 15 weeks after her leg failed to heal and she underwent surgery to fix her damaged knee.

Midway through her stay she began developing a scab on the tip of her nose.

Widow Golda added: "It would appear on a Monday, scab up through the week and then fall off on its own by the Friday.

It was only when Golda saw a locum in December while staying with her daughter - around five months after the curious growth began - that she was told it could be more serious.

She was sent for a biopsy and was told she had a malignant melanoma in her nose and on her lip.

Surgeons at an Essex hospital removed almost all of her nose in two operations, as well as a portion of her upper lip, and a slice of skin from her neck for skin grafts which did not take.

She has been fitted with a prosthetic nose but it is too uncomfortable to wear.

The NHS trust confirmed the civil appeal lodged by Mrs Humphrey, but are unwilling to comment at this time.

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